Surgery built for tomorrow is feeling the strain after surge in demand
When Newbattle Medical Centre opened in 2004 it was described as “future-proofed” – a billing that lasted barely a decade.
In the last seven years the practice in Mayfield, Midlothian has struggled to cope with a surge in the local population.
Staff at the centre, which sits close to three stops on the Border Railway line, have come under pressure as the number of residents in its catchment area jumped by a third to 16,000.
Dr Iain Morrison, a partner at the practice, said: “Population demand has made things very difficult.
“We doubled our on-calls and still couldn’t keep up.
“We got to a situation where we had staff, other GPs, threatening to leave if we didn’t do something because it was just unsustainable.”
So in February last year, despite plans for even more homes in the area, the surgery’s list was closed to new patients.
Dr Morrison said: “It was a tough and stressful call, but we had to put existing patients ahead of potential patients.
“If we lost staff, the situation would have got a lot worse for everyone. So we adopted GP triage. A lot of patients enjoy it, a lot don’t, but we do it to try to improve service.
“We were concerned that the quiet patients were getting pushed on to routine waits for appointments that were lasting up to two weeks and the people who could shout the loudest were getting seen on the day by the duty doctor.
“A lot of patients would say ‘I’m not telling you’, but they
would rarely withhold something that would see them jumped up the queue.”
There is light at the end of the tunnel in the shape of two new GPs – Dr Morrison admits there has been some “wage inflation” to attract them – and a second site is planned to help meet demand.